Moie, a small town of about 5.500 inhabitants, is in the medium valley of the river Esino.
A country rich in traditions which people id still hanged on to its origins.

The history:
The origin of the settlement is connected to the drainage and to the colonization of the valley bottom, started by the monks who founded St Mary’s abbey.
The abbey, emblematic of Moie, was in the so called Saint wood, at the edge of the left bank of the Esino, with the typical “moja” (marshland) that named the abbey and subsequently the village. Another feature of the place was the Castrum Mollearum, built near the abbey and now lost.

The Romanesque abbey of Santa Maria delle Moie, a perfect example of the Romanesque in the Marches

Historic notes:
Placed on the left bank of the Esino and along the ancient Via Flanbenga, the abbey was founded at the beginning of the 11th century by the Attoni-Alberici –Gozoni family as private monastery. Built in the middle of a thick wood, the abbey was the revival center of the region. The abbey was in a plain by a marshland along the Esino called “molie” from which derives the name. In a 1219 document it is in fact called “Molie S. Mariae plani”, also with reference to the plain in which it stood. The abbey bordered a wood called Silva Carpineta and was not far from a bridge leading to the right bank of the Esino. During the 11th and 12th centuries it received many donations: in 1295 the abbey owned about 165 hectares and four mills registered at the land office. The power of the Benedictine abbey went on increasing until the 15th century when it reached the extent of 428 hectares. The church was restored in 1524 as is testified in a plaque of the western front. The renovation was maybe due to the poor condition of the Medieval towers and involved the transformation of the upper part of the western body, where the priest house was arranged. The present bell tower too dates back to 1524. In 1600 the diocesan bishop Marco Agrippa Dandini raised the church of Santa Maria della Moie to parish.

The structure:
The church is built with squared yellowish sandstones. In the interior it is supported by four pillars and is composed by a nave and two aisles: the raised nave is slightly cuspidate. At the eastern side the nave and the aisles end with a semicircular apse. From this side the apses, different in height and in depth, highlight the basilica shape of the church. Only two apses jut out on the northern side as the cornice decorated by white travertine small hanging arches, partly supported by pairs of half cylindrical pilasters ringed by small bare capitals. Before the entrance there is a square cross vaulted hall, flanked by two similar ones; in the left one there is a spiral staircase. The portal shows a splay with decreasing columns and is decorated by interlaced flowers and leaves.

Historic - artistic elements:
The main features of the church are the apses and most of all the layout (about 15x15 meters) that, based on the isolated four inner pillars, recalls, more than the Byzantine pattern, the early Christian three conch buildings and the square Greek cross early Medieval buildings frequent in Italy and for the first time architecturally connected at San Claudio al Chienti. The features of the elevation of Santa Maria delle Moie (the tunnel vaulted nave slightly higher compared to the side aisles and the double towers front) have important precedents in the Marches. As per the typology the main reference is the abbey church of Santa Maria di Portonovo in Ancona. As per the originally double towers front, famous precedents in Italy are the cathedral of Bobbio and San Giovanni in Como, where (like at Moie) the entrance bay between the two towers is combined with a matroneum.
The church is dedicated to Mary’s Nativity and a painting about this subject decorated the high altar.
Cultural Center “eFFeMMe23”

A work of industrial Archaeology at Moie.

The kiln lives again as meeting place through new plans. In the interior there are: library, literary café, Informagiovani, Joyce Lussu room, Solidarity Group with Research Center. All these activities live under the same lowest common denominator “eFFeMMe23”, acronym of Fornace Moie, while 23 refers to the year 1923, when the Hoffmann kiln was installed.
The brick kiln, closed in 1974 and entered per legacy among the public goods, after long procedures were finally restored.
The renovation ended in 2007 and is a clear example of recovery of industrial archaeology.
Its transformation into multi-services library made of it a populated center of attraction.
The original volumetry, the chimney and the 1923 Hoffmann kiln make of it an historic place that perpetuates the bonds between the social local history and the new cultural roles offered to people and to new generations.